


Our Fathers' Daughters

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chocolate Box Exchange, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, One Shot, Sweet, set between EBS and ROTJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 10:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17681657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Jyn and Leia talk about their pasts, their choices, and their futures. Chocolate Box exchange fill!





	Our Fathers' Daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearwaldorf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearwaldorf/gifts).



“This is your stupidest plan yet, Cass,” Jyn comments, as she tries to tug on the flowing white gown that had been left on her bunk. It’s somehow too big in all the wrong places and too small in all the places she’d much prefer a little extra fabric. It’s like a tent, if a tent was also designed to make it impossible to breath, run, or fight. How was this supposed to be any sort of a functional disguise if she couldn’t even move in it?  “Stupidest. That promotion clearly melted your brain.”

 

“Oh?” Cassian’s voice is only a little muffled from where he waits on the other side of the screen in the room, giving Jyn the privacy she’d never asked for. The same that she’s not used to, not at all. Never thought before about the need to have a screen in the room to change behind, or even, thought much of what she’d want from a room.

 

“You might be a Major but you’re a minor pain in this plan.” Jyn tries to joke, just a little, because it's what she can offer him, Bodhi, her other compatriots of Rogue One. Even years after Scarif, the pain still haunts them all. Each of them tries to heal the others in their own way. Cassian with his self-sacrifice. Bodhi, with soft touches and warm tea. And Jyn? She uses humor, pretends to never be worried, never be afraid of what’s next. If she keeps the mood light between them all, then just maybe, they can keep clinging to hope. 

 

“Keep trying Erso, you’ll get a funny joke one day.” 

The lighter tone in Cassian’s  muffled words is a victory. Enough of a victory that she returns to the battle at hand. Namely, fighting with this gown made of Naboo water-silk and garberwool and  _ stupidity. _ Because what other name is there for all these ribbons and ruffles and ties? The way the coreseting presses against her ribs? The way the whole dress weighs more than Jyn’s rucksack. Every bit of the dress is foreign to Jyn, reminding her of the work she’s going to have to do to pretend it’s something she’d wear every day. “You really think I can--”

 

Jyn’s comment is cut off by a softer, gentler voice from the ‘fresher in the corner of the room. “Um, could I have a hand? If anyone’s free. I mean. I…”

 

“What’s wrong, princess?” 

 

Jyn hears the difference in Cassian’s tone addressing Leia, hears the soft respect offered to the figurehead of the Rebellion by a man who’s given his life to the cause. It’s not that she’s jealous of it, but it is… odd. To see how everyone, from the lowest new recruit to the most senior commander, all defer to a girl younger than Jyn.

 

“Nothing. I just… Don’t know where to put all these knives.”

 

With a small snort, and before Cassian can even finish muttering the phrase  _ all these knives _ when Jyn has assured him, multiple times, it’s just one knife, Jyn crosses the room to open the fresher door. Her  long stride tangles in the flowing skirt and the drop sleeves make her feel like she’s swimming in a puddle of fabric. Worst of all, whatever corseting the dress has makes every breath a near-swoon. And Jyn is not someone to swoon.

 

Leia stands there, mostly dressed in Jyn’s clothes; a loose jacket and trousers. Come to think of it, this is the first time Jyn’s seen Leia’s legs. She figures that’s another way they’re different. Leia wears dresses. Can afford to. Can deal with the way they tangle when you run in them, or bunch up when you fight. Not that, as far as Jyn knows, the princess has ever done much fighting. “You don’t need them,” Jyn says, taking her favorite knife back.

 

“Why wouldn’t I?”

 

“You’re just supposed to sneak into Mos Eisley as me. Not… you know.” While Jyn says that, there’s the noise of Cassian leaving the room, beyond them. Jyn’s not sure if it’s a tactical retreat for him, or if he’s going for reinforcements. Either way, it’s a smart move.

 

“I don’t understand.” 

 

“You’re not gonna be me. It’s not like you’re gonna pick a fight with some no good kriffer who looks at you wrong.”

 

Leia folds her arms. That’s what Jyn keeps trying to call her. Leia. Not the princess, not her worshipfulness as Solo likes to call her, not the commander. Just Leia. Someone that, maybe, in another lifetime, could have been her friend. If they’d stayed on Coruscant, she’d have gone to school there. Made friends with people like princesses, and… plenty of imperials. 

 

“I’m calling it like it is,” Jyn says. “You’re not me.”

 

“I’m not.” Leia’s arms unfold. There’s a small flash of a hand, a whizz of metal through the air. The thrown knife sticks deep into the ‘fresher wobbles with impact, but doesn’t fall. A very good throw and certainly not an unpracticed one. “But I’m not some meek bantha cub, either.”

 

Jyn reconsiders the woman before her. The daughter of Bail Organa, a name she’d heard Saw mention more than once. In fact, somewhere in Jyn’s distance memory there’s a flicker, of a meeting room, of Saw’s raised voice, of a girl, smaller than even Jyn had been, watching the men argue with wide eyes. Jyn had thought, then, maybe she and that girl could be friends.

 

Because back then, Jyn had still believed in the word friends. 

 

“My father ensured I knew how to protect myself.”

 

“So did mine,” Jyn retorts, but finds, unsurprisingly, she’s not thinking of Galen when she says that word. “And I’ve been fighting ever since.”

 

“I’m not going to say that your life was enjoyable, nor easy,” Leia says, softly, as she carefully tucks the scarf around her hair, hiding just how long it is. Odd how, without the hair in buns or braids, without the all-white ensemble, Leia looks far too ordinary to be the standard-bearer of the Rebellion. Jyn tries not to think what she must look like, with her hair in long braided extensions (which, to be fair, watching Cassian style did give her a fair amount of amusement) and trapped in this flowing gown, white like bone.  “I’ve read all your files.”

 

“Not all.”

 

“Yes, even the three you sliced into and tried to redact.”

 

Jyn feels her ears heat pink. She can’t even take a deep breath to fight the rising blush, not when this dress forces her into shallow little gasps of air. “So?”

 

“So, you’ve been through a lot.”

 

“Haven’t had my home planet blow up.”

 

“No,” Leia agrees, “but you’ve never had a home, have you.”

 

The words hit. Hard. Hard like a punch in the ribs. Hard like loss, hard like everything she’ll never have again. But softer, suddenly, are Leia’s hands, holding hers. There’s calluses on Leia’s hands, which Jyn hadn’t expected, and her nails are manicured, which Jyn had expected. “Not until now.” Leia says, more firmly. “Your home is with us. And it is my home too. We are equals, here. I know it doesn’t feel that way to you, and I am not foolish enough anything I can say will fix that.”

 

“Giving me the ol’ Rebellion speech? I’ve heard it before.” And fell for it, a fact they both know. Because despite everything, Jyn is here. Ready to impersonate Leia, so that the princess can try to slip through Mos Eisley, looking for some contact with information on freeing Han Solo from carbonite. Because, despite everything, Jyn has found she still believes in the word friends, and these days, all her friends just so happen to be Rebels.

 

“So have I,” Leia replies. “But I haven’t heard many people talk about Alderaan without pity in their eyes, and that, honestly, is quite refreshing.”

 

“Yeah?” Jyn leans back against the wall, watching Leia finish up with the small accessories of Jyn’s own outfit, checking every belt and buckle twice. It makes her realize, suddenly, how much the clothes Leia wears has always shaped Jyn’s opinion of her. How she’s never noticed the callused hands of a soldier or the muscles of a fighter. “You hide a lot in this big sack of a dress, don’t you?”

 

Leia just smiles at her. “I think we all hide a great deal of things, in dresses or out of them.”

 

Jyn sets her jaw, trying not to agree with the logic in Leia’s words. The princess is fast turning out to be as good of an arguer as Cassian. Damn them both. “What’s your point?”

 

“My point,” Leia steps forward, offering her hand, but not to shake. Instead, there’s a small silvery knife, perfectly weighted and wickedly sharp. It’s not one of Jyn’s. None of hers are that pristine, nor do they have the symbol of the Rebellion pressed into the hilt. “Is that we are both our father’s daughters, but their legacy does not need to be ours.”

 

Jyn takes the knife. The movement is enough to pull the corseting of the dress tighter, squeezing more air out of her lungs.   
  


“I keep it in my hair,” Leia says, “but you’re welcome to place it elsewhere.”

 

“Not a disguise unless it’s accurate.”

 

“It’s not part of this con. It’s a gift.” Leia waits for Jyn to tuck it into her waistband. 

 

There’s something far more like a smile playing on Jyn’s lips, something she hadn’t expected at all. “Well, my gift is helping you get your nerf-herder of a smuggler back.”

 

Leia laughs, and that, Jyn realizes, is the first time she’s ever seen her do so. Jyn’s worked hard on healing Cassian, on keeping the nightmares from Bodhi, but she’d never thought to check in on Leia, too. If she’s honest with herself, it has more than a little bit to do with the destroyed superweapon, with the fall of Alderaan. Because Jyn’s father had been to blame for Leia’s loss. Because Jyn had been to blame too. If they’d gotten the plans fast, if… 

 

_ We are our father’s daughters.  _ Leia had said. Was that… did she understand, too?  Cassian had commented that sometimes it seemed Leia could almost read minds, that her empathy let her speak the words held in someone’s heart. Chirrut had commented that empathy was only a word and not always the right one.  _ We are our fathers’ daughters,  _ after all, made that phrase so different, so much more, and made the second sentence so much more hopeful. It spans more history, takes in more of the men that had raised the two of them, offers a better future, if they can find a future better than any dreamed of by all of those men, broken in so many ways by wars and betrayals and fears.

 

“You do realize,” Leia says, “that it’s not… that we would do this for any friend. This….” Leia waves her hand to take in the costumes, the plan, the work they’re doing. “I would come to rescue you, too. That’s what a friend does.”

 

“Well, I’m not planning on getting frozen in carbonite anytime soon.” Jyn replies. Finally, she steps forward, to adjust her scarf around Leia’s face, keeping all her royal features in shadow. Then, she spends another minute checking over the rest of the outfit, ensuring there’s nothing that will give her away. There’s no mission briefing for this. There’s no commander barking orders. She’s not even quite sure if this mission had been sanctioned at all by high command (except for the member of high command standing in front of her), which makes her head spin if she thinks too much. “You’d really come after me.”

 

“We all would.” 

 

She knows Rogue One would track her down, if she ran. She’d never thought her years here in the Rebellion granted her any more than that. But the knife in her belt is proof otherwise. “Right.”

 

“Friends?” Leia asks.

 

Jyn bites her lip. Remembers Saw’s lectures on caution, on the dangers of trust. Remembers the Death Star, and all the reasons Leia has to not trust Jyn, not if she’s read all her files. But then, she remembers, too, the small girl across the mission table from her, a lifetime ago. Remembers seeing someone else young and stubborn and brave, another child pulled into this war, and how she’d yearned to be friends with her. There’s been so few second chances in Jyn’s life. So, she seizes this one. “Yeah. Just one question.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“How the kriff do you breathe in this dress?”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome! Thank you for reading, and thank you to SassySnowperson for the beta.


End file.
